INTERNET TRIUMPHANT: By 2025, Web will be in every aspect of our lives - for good or ill

Internet will lead to greater connectivity but less privacy, experts warn

The
Internet is ever-present in our waking lives in many ways today. It
will only be more encroaching into the latter parts of the 21st Century.
Experts predict that the global village will be constantly connected by
the Internet in 2025, leading to a greater exchange of ideas but making
people more susceptible to cyber-attacks and manipulation.

Privacy may very well be a thing of the past.

Highlights

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Experts say that in formulating their theories, they first had to acknowledge the difference between what is popularly known as the "Internet" versus the Web. They are not the same things.

Connectivity cuts far deeper than the average person thinks. The Internet is the network that connects computers. The Web is just one way to access the Internet - so those are the websites you go to on using your Web browser. But some email clients, gaming devices and video calling software (think Microsoft Outlook, Xbox 360 and Skype) also use the Internet without using the Web. So do many Internet-connected apps on your Smartphone.

The Internet will become ubiquitous and embedded in our lives - the same way electricity is today.

"The Internet will shift from the place we find cat videos to a background capability that will be a seamless part of how we live our everyday lives," Joe Touch, director of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute says. "We won't think about 'going online' or 'looking on the Internet' for something. We'll just be online, and just look."

So the Pew report asked: What do you expect to be the most significant overall impacts of our uses of the Internet on humanity between now and 2025? The pew report posed this question to various experts and they came up with a list of predictions.

Privacy may very well be a thing of the past. "We'll have a picture of how someone has spent their time, the depth of their commitment to their hobbies, causes, friends, and family. This will change how we think about people, how we establish trust, how we negotiate change, failure, and success," Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard University says.

Other experts predict that this can also effectively personalize health care and disease prevention.

"Everything will be available online with price tags attached," Llewellyn Kriel, head of a media services company in South Africa says. "Cyber-terrorism will become commonplace. Privacy and confidentiality of any and all personal will become a thing of the past," he says.

Privacy in 2025, some predict will be a luxury reserved for the upper class.

There will be a bright side: "The smartest person in the world currently could well be stuck behind a plow in India or China," Hal Varian, chief economist for Google says. "Enabling that person - and the millions like him or her - will have a profound impact on the development of the human race."

The downside will likely be group-think, mob mentality and manipulation. "The Internet will be used as the most effective force of mind control the planet has ever seen, leaving the Madison Avenue revolution as a piddling, small thing by comparison," Mikey O'Connor, an elected representative to ICANN's GNSO Council, representing the ISP and Connectivity Provider Constituency says.